Making their bodies look more beautiful and attractive is one of the fundamental interests of women of all ages all over the world. In particular, making their breasts look well-shaped is their strong desire. To satisfy this desire, underwear manufactures have conventionally developed and marketed various undergarments having cups such as brassieres and camisoles.
There are two main types of undergarments having cups (brassieres as a typical example of such undergarments are described below). One is an underwire brassiere provided with wires arranged along the lower edges of cups (usually corresponding to barge scan lines) (see Patent Literature 1), and the other is a wireless (non-wire or wire-free) brassiere without such wires (see Patent Literature 2).
When an underwire brassiere provided with wires along the lower edges of cups is put on so that the wires conform to the barge scan lines of breasts, the wires can support the breasts stably from below to form beautifully shaped breasts and keep the beautiful shape of the breasts for a long time. However, since the wires themselves are made of a rigid material such as a metal or a resin, they bite into the skin of a wearer and make her feel pain after a long period of wearing, which is considered as a drawback of underwire brassieres.
In contrast, in the case of a wireless brassiere provided with no such wires that could bite into the skin, a portion of each cup of the brassiere conforming to the barge scan line has a soft texture and makes the wearer feel comfortable. Therefore, wireless brassieres are particularly well received by elderly women, and recently these wireless brassieres are becoming the dominant type of brassieres.
The wearing comfort of wireless brassieres is much higher than that of underwire brassieres, but wireless brassieres have the following drawback. Even if a wireless brassiere is put on to create beautiful barge scan lines, cups gradually slip upward (particularly when the wearer is a large-breasted woman) during a long period of wearing and cause loss of the beautifully created barge scan lines, resulting in loss of the breast shape.
In addition, underwire brassieres and wireless brassieres have the common problem to be solved, i.e., the fit of a brassiere to the breasts of the wearer. The breast size varies from one woman to another, but it is absolutely impossible for underwear manufacturers to offer a wide variety of undergarment sizes (particularly cup sizes) for all individuals, and the variety of sizes that they can offer is limited to a certain range as a matter of course. As a result, a subtle difference between the cup size and the breast size cannot be eliminated. In particular, this subtle difference makes the wearers feel uncomfortable after a long period of wearing, and thus the wearers' dissatisfaction with the fit of brassieres cannot be resolved.
Of course, it may be possible to some extent to accommodate a wide variety of cup sizes to improve the wearing comfort, but the discomfort caused by the size difference mentioned above cannot be completely eliminated. In addition, such a wide variety of sizes causes inefficient inventory management, resulting in an increase in cost, as another problem. To solve these problems and drawbacks of conventional wireless brassieres, wireless brassieres with a limited number of sizes but with improved fit have been proposed (see Patent Literature 3 and FIG. 6 attached herewith).
A wireless brassiere 100 described in Patent Literature 3 includes: a pair of left and right cups 120 made of a stretchable fabric; a base panel 140 (front panel) provided along the lower edges 120a of the cups 120; stretchable tapes 170, each of which is made of a long strip of mesh tape and sewn to both the lower edge 120a of the cup 120 and the cup-side edge 180a of the base panel 140 so as to indirectly connect the cup 120 and the base panel 140 along the entire length of their edges; a back panel 400; and shoulder straps 200.
These stretchable tapes 170 are each disposed between the lower edge 120a of the cup 120 and the cup-side edge 180a of the base panel 140 and sewn to both of these edges extending along a line from the shoulder to the lower part of the sternum in the center of the chest (FIG. 6).
These stretchable tapes 170 each conform to the entire length of the barge scan line V and softly fit under the barge scan line V, and thus support the breast from below to prevent the cup 120 from slipping upward without an underwire.
The stretchable tapes 170 are highly elastic and stretchable in their longitudinal direction and a direction perpendicular to the barge scan lines V. Therefore, the stretchable tapes 170 are stretched to fit larger breasts, while they are compressed (or slightly stretched) to fit smaller breasts.
With these stretchable tapes, the brassiere 100 of a given size can cover a certain range of breast sizes, regardless of whether the breasts are large or small, and thus the number of sizes required can be reduced, which makes the inventory management easier.
However, the brassiere 100 is required to have not only the function of supporting the breasts from below while preventing the cups 120 from slipping upward but also the function of pushing the breasts in the cups 120 inwardly toward the center of the chest and lifting them to create cleavage lines D of a beautifully formed breast cleavage in the decollete area. To meet these requirements, it is necessary to add volume to the breasts. Therefore, when the conventional brassiere 100 is put on, flab under the arms is forced into the cups 120 to add the volume to the wearer's own breasts and push the breasts and the flab together inwardly and lift them, as described above.
When this brassiere 100 is worn, an outer end portion of each of the cups 120 is pulled up by the pull-up action of the shoulder strap 200, with a connection point Pj between the cups 120 located at the lower part of the sternum remaining fixed, while the breast in the cup 120 is pushed inwardly toward the sternum by the reaction to the pulling-up by the shoulder strap 200, as indicated by thick arrows F1.
The stretchable tapes 170 of the wireless brassiere 100 are each sewn to the entire length of the lower edge 120a of the cup 120 (extending from a shoulder strap sewing portion Pu of each of the left and right cups 120 to the connection point Pj located at the “lower part of the sternum”). Therefore, when the breast is pushed toward the sternum, a portion of the stretchable tape 170 near the lower part of the sternum is significantly stretched as indicated by up- and down-arrows F2, and as a result, the force of pushing the breast upwardly is reduced as indicated by thin up-arrows F3, and thus beautiful, deep cleavage lines D of voluminous breasts cannot be created.
An invention as shown in Patent Literature 4 (FIG. 7 to FIG. 9) has been proposed as a wireless brassiere 110 configured to push breasts inwardly toward the sternum and then push them upwardly so as to form cleavage lines D.
This invention discloses that triangular ribs 190 are each formed on the inner face of the sternum-side panel of the cup 120, and the breasts pushed inwardly toward the sternum are pushed against the ribs 190 so as to push the corresponding portions of the breasts upwardly and form cleavage lines D.
This technique allows the formation of acceptable cleavage lines D. However, the triangular ribs 190 provided in the vicinity of the sternum push and deform the corresponding portions of the breasts located near the lower part of the sternum, and as a result, portions of the cleavage lines D corresponding to the pushed portions of the breasts near the lower part of the sternum are pushed and slightly deformed and the deformed portions Dh are noticeable in the appearance. These deformed portions Dh are lightly shaded in FIG. 7. It should be noted that this wireless brassiere 110 includes hooked belts 400′ instead of the back panel 400.